Last Words
by JustMcShane
Summary: "If I've ever delivered a 'cool pre-arse-kicking one-liner' to any sort of 'villain' I've ever 'faced down' in a 'battle for the fate of the world itself', it's not springing to mind at the moment." (For Spyfest 2019, Week 3)


**Notes: **For the prompt 'Alex's best punchline to a villain.' Bit of a short and lackluster one, because I really didn't know where to go with this, and I needed to work on other writing projects.

* * *

"Uh –"Alex ran a hand through his hair, frowning, before taking another sip of the can of Coke he was holding, and shaking his head. "I don't think so, no."

"Oh, come _on_," said Tom, kicking his feet up over the top of the sofa so he was sprawled almost upside-down, staring up at Alex, who was sitting much more normally on the other side of the sofa. "You've got to have at least one. All action heroes do."

"Seriously, Tom," said Alex, "if I've ever delivered a 'cool pre-arse-kicking one-liner' to any sort of 'villain' I've ever 'faced down' in a 'battle for the fate of the world itself', it's not springing to mind at the moment."

"Not even during the whole Stormbreaker thing?" Tom pressed.

"I was a dumb kid then," Alex said dryly. "Even if I _could _remember all the details of that one, I'd bet you anything that nothing that I said to Sayle was anywhere close to _cool._"

"At that weird rich mountain academy, then."

"Actions speak louder than words," Alex said. "I was a bit too busy launching a snowmobile at a helicopter to think up any cool quips."

Tom searched his extensive memory of Alex's unlikely escapades. "Okay, what about –"

Alex sighed, and there were all sorts of things in that sigh that Tom really didn't want to think about too hard. "Look, Tom, could you just drop it?" he said – clearly reluctantly, like he didn't want to cut Tom off like this but was getting too uncomfortable with the topic to let this line of questioning continue any further. "I know being a spy and thwarting 'evil villains'," the bunny-ear quotation marks went up at this, although at no point did his voice turn mocking or sarcastic, "sounds cool and all – and all right, some parts of it are, occasionally, I guess – but for the most part? It's pretty fucked up. I don't even want to _think_ about any of these people, let alone the stuff I said to them half a second before I killed them, or they tried to kill me, or whatever."

"...right," said Tom quietly, and stared at his hands, chagrined. "Of course. Sorry, mate."

"Nah, it's," Alex sighed again, "it's all right. I don't blame you for asking – just wish I had a better answer for you." He took another sip from his Coke. "Something more exciting, you know? More exciting than 'I was terrified and improvising, and I've forgotten anything witty that I might have said at the time'."

"Fair enough," said Tom, and they both pretended to watch the footy match that was playing on the television, instead of talking about what they were really thinking. They did this for a uncomfortable few minutes. Tom silently cursed himself for screwing everything up, again. Alex didn't move much – barely blinked, really. He appeared to be thinking, hard.

"Actually," said Alex suddenly, audibly brightening as something apparently occurred to him, "there is _one _thing I do remember."

Tom looked up, cautiously intrigued. "Yeah?"

"Hands-down, the best thing I've said to _any _bad guy," Alex grinned.

"Go on..."

"So," he said, with obvious glee, "this was about two years ago – I was facing this woman down across her office desk. She was trying to convince me to stick around in her absolute mess of a corrupt, screwed-up organization, to do jobs for her, that sort of thing. And she wouldn't stop talking about how much good I could do if I stuck around and kept helping out – never mind if I actually wanted to or anything."

"Sounds _terrible,_" said Tom, who had experience with people forcing him into things he didn't want to do – to a much lesser degree, but.

"_Exactly, _and I told her that, and she just kept talking over me about how much she needed me, so I told her to stop, and I told her that I had something that I needed to tell her that I'd been waiting a _while _to say."

Tom leaned forwards. "What was it?"

Alex just _beamed. _"I said, _Mrs Jones – I quit._ And I just walked out. It was the last time I ever saw her. Completely worth it."


End file.
